AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini 2 Media Player (ACR-PV73800) Review

AC Ryan Playon!HD Mini 2 Media Player Review

A few years ago watching content from a hard drive on a TV usually meant that the user was connecting their desktop system (or HTPC) to the TV and viewing the files in a Windows environment. As technology moved forward smaller form factor PCs took off and this increased the number of people playing their content on a TV, something which was made easier with releases such as Windows Media Centre and HDMI support.

Nowadays a huge number of devices can be connected to our TV set from laptops to tablet PCs and even mobile phones. Few though offer quick and simple integration of media from various sources, whether it is network shares, local drives or the net itself. Those that do often lack format support or feature less than decent interface.

A little over a year ago AC Ryan identified this gap in the market and launched their Playon! range, a set of media players/streamers which could be connected to numerous devices and played back pretty much anything which was thrown at it. The initial products were the recipient of awards across the net, including here. Then later in 2010 we saw the release of a DVR with dual tuners and the Essential, a cut down version of the original Playon!HD which included a new GUI.

Recently AC Ryan announced their next generation players and today we take a look at the Playon!HD Mini 2 which as well as featuring improved specifications also gets the new GUI and some extra features such as social media integration.